Sometimes they
call me _La Pucelle_, or the Maid of France. But you were right, I am a
shepherdess, too. I have kept my father's sheep in the fields down
there, and spun from the distaff while I watched them. I knew how to
sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois or Lorraine. Will you
not stand up and talk with me?"

Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand
how to take this strange experience--too simple for a heavenly
apparition, too real for a common dream.

"Well, then," said he, "if you are a shepherdess why are you here?
There are no sheep here."

"But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you."

"Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?"

"Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble."

Pierre's head drooped. "A broken soldier," he muttered, "not fit to
speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You speak very bad French. There
is no such thing as being afraid of fear. For if you are afraid of it,
you hate it. If you hate it, you will have nothing to do with it. And
if you have nothing to do with it, it cannot touch you; it is nothing."

"But for you, a saint, it is easy to say that. You had no fear when you
fought. You knew you would not be killed."

"I was no more sure of that than the other soldiers. Besides, when they
bound me to the stake at Rouen and kindled the fire around me I knew
very well that I should be killed. But there was no fear in it. Only
peace."

"Ah, you were strong, a warrior born. You were not wounded and broken."

"Four times I was wounded," she answered, gravely. "At Orleans a bolt
went through my right shoulder. At Paris a lance tore my thigh. I never
saw the blood of Frenchmen flow without feeling my heart stand still. I
was not a warrior born. I knew not how to ride or fight. But I did it.
What we must needs do that we can do. Soldier, do not look on the
ground. Look up."

Then a strange thing took place before his eyes. A wondrous radiance, a
mist of light, enveloped and hid the shepherdess. When it melted she
was clad in shining armor, sitting on a white horse, and lifting a bare
sword in her left hand.

"God commands you," she cried. "It is for France. Be of good cheer. Do
not retreat. The fort will soon be yours!"

How should Pierre know that this was the cry with which the Maid had
rallied her broken men at Orleans when the fort of _Les To